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BREIVIK

Mass killer Breivik to take Norway to court

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is preparing to take Norway’s Ministry of Justice to court, arguing that his prolonged solitary confinement amounts to “torture”.

Published: 11 February 2015 08:04 CET
Mass killer Breivik to take Norway to court
Norway killer Anders Breivik makes a fascist salute as he enters the courtroom during his trial in 2012. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen/Scanpix
The far-right extremist’s lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norway's Dagbladet newspaper that he intended to file the suit before Easter, after trying and failing to end his client’s isolation though appealing to prison authorities over the past two years. 
 
“We are preparing a lawsuit against the government at the Ministry of Justice,” Lippestad told the paper. “The central part of the lawsuit is that he is in practice still sitting in solitary confinement, and that this is the time that it should cease.” 
 
Lippestad believes that Breivik’s prison conditions are contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Article Three, which states that no one should be subjected to "torture, inhuman or degrading treatment". 
 
“Prolonged isolation becomes a form of torture,” Lippestad maintained. 
 
Breivik was given a 21-year prison sentence in August 2012 for the twin terror attacks he carried out on July 22nd, 2011, which left 77 dead and more than 300 wounded.  
 
“Human rights also apply to him,” Lippestad said. “This is not about him getting an easy punishment. He will probably always be a special prisoner with special restrictions, but he can not sit in isolation forever. He now wants contact with other inmates. The longer he sits isolated, the greater the chance that he will be harmed by it.” 
 
Prison authorities last December passed a resolution preventing Breivik from sending out letters because they believed he was attempting to found a militant anti-Islamic movement. 
 
Lippestad said that prison authorities now stopped the killer sending out even anodyne postcards. 
 
Lippestad said that his client was now spending most of his time preparing for the trial and writing a new book. Otherwise, he reads newspapers, goes on a treadmill and watches news on the television. 
 
According to the lawyer, Breivik has already completed one manuscript, which he keeps in his cell as he is forbidden from sending it out to be read by others. 

COURT

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

Published: 7 July 2021 10:03 CEST
French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

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